Some of my favorite Mac apps in 2011

I’ve compiled a list of some of my favorite apps from 2011. I wrote a TextMate command to link all of these1 (60+ links in four minutes!), so if you spot any misfire links that I missed, let me know in the comments. This isn’t an all-inclusive list (despite its length), but it’s a good chance to highlight some gems that may have passed under the radar of the big sites.

No fancy awards here, just a grateful mention of apps that make my life better. Glaring ommisions (like the unbeatable 1Password) are only because I assume you’ve already heard of them. Absolutely no slight intended to anyone not on this list. Well, except for a few. You know who you are.

Writing

Byword - Serving a slightly different audience, Byword has become my favorite setting for getting writing done. It inspires me to start, and makes it easy to finish. Full Markdown feature set.

Clarify - This new app from BlueMango is a highly-focused version of ScreenSteps (my favorite tool for building documentation). If you write screen-based documentation of any sort, check this out.

Scrivener - Big update to Scrivener this year, and it’s an amazing writing tool (was before, better now). On the edge of feature bloat, but not there yet.

MindNode Pro - I admit that I use Mindjet MindManager and MindMeister just as much as I use MindNode, but it’s still always impressed me as an elegant and affordable mind-mapping solution. Definitely worth mentioning.

Music

Simplify - An awesome addon for the Spotify app. Desktop artwork, hotkey control… I even made a skin for it.

LastHistory - Not new, and I don’t think it’s been updated for a while, but if you Scrobble to Last.fm, check this out.

Musicality - Wrapper for Last.fm, Pandora and Grooveshark. I use it less now that I’m into Spotify, but it’s still a great app. Keyboard shortcuts, Growl track notifications, and cross-service scrobbling.

Video

Permute - This is one of the best GUIs I’ve found for video conversion. Simple, fast and high-quality output.

FotoMagico - This is another really cool app from Boinx. I don’t make a lot of slideshows, but when I do, this makes them awesome.

Productivity

Raven - I haven’t actually gotten very far into this app yet, but I’ve played with it enough to know that it’s a highly-polished way to bring together a plethora of Single Site Browsers and keep everything in one place. It won’t kill Fluid, not for me, but it’s tasty.

TaskPaper - Not my go-to task manager (even after a concerted effort), but I still use it daily for personal web/coding projects, and I love the plain-text approach to task management.

Fantastical and QuickCal. It doesn’t matter which you choose, calendar entry has never been so easy. I’m hoping to have time to write up in-depth reviews of both soon.

Reeder - It’s how I do RSS on my Mac. It’s gorgeous and–for the most part–very stable and fast. A couple quirks, and it seems to hate Flash, but I haven’t been tempted by anything else since I started using it.

Tags - I talk about Tags all the time. It’s not under heavy development, but it’s never failed me.

Honorable Mentions

Spout - Really cool way to view your Twitter stream. Highly distracting and resource-heavy, but pretty brilliant in its execution.